Conference PapersCopyright (c) 2016 Dublin Institute of Technology All rights reserved.http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon
Recent documents in Conference Papersen-usWed, 23 Nov 2016 01:36:10 PST3600Why Does Film and Television Sci-Fi Tend to Portray Machines as Being Human?http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/43
http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/43Mon, 21 Nov 2016 04:40:43 PST
This paper identifies, and attempts to explain, a lack of diversity in the way that cinema and television science fiction represents robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). Through a qualitative content analysis of recent film and television portrayals, it is argued, that a limited and limiting vision predominates. This limitation may serve to ideologically reinforce the power of corporate elites. It may also hamper discussion and debate around technological possibilities and their relationship with society.

There has been a slew of entertainment productions since 2013 that represent AI and robotics. This work examines Her (2013), Transcendence (2014), Interstellar (2014), Chappie (2015), Ex Machina (2015) and Humans (2015). AI is an old theme in science fiction. What is new, however, is that representations of AI now take place in a world where advanced machine learning is a reality. Nevertheless, rather than exploring existing AI or its future possibilities, popular fiction has remained rooted in a ‘human as machine’ metaphor and the fantastical vision of AI as a form of artificial humanity.

The paper argues that fictional representations form part of how we learn about and understand such emerging technologies. They are part of how we think about and discuss the relationship between technology and society today. Science fiction does not just offer speculative representations of social reality it may, in various ways, help to shape it. Science fiction may inspire and inform the work of technologists. It may also form part of the social construction of new technologies, shaping how people see, understand and interact with them.

Currently, grandiose and often apocalyptic visions of AI may blind us to the prosaic but serious risks that such technologies can present. Artificial intelligence exists today but in a form quite different to the strong AI that is typically presented in popular culture. It exists in the machine learning technologies that permit, for example, dynamic speech recognition, face recognition, emerging medical diagnostic techniques and so on. Machine learning can be used to gather, integrate and analyse immense data sets for use in sales, insurance, surveillance and so on. If AI poses a threat to society, diminished privacy and the mass unemployment of professionals may be a better place to concentrate rather than dreading the rise of self-aware robotic overlords.

Popular science fiction representations are limited for a number of reasons. First, a cybertotalist culture, which flourishes amid the west’s computer industry, propagates a belief in AI as the path to a post-human Singularity (see Lanier 2000). This describes an apocalyptic moment when technological evolution will outrun human control and outstrip humanity’s physical and mental capacities. Such mythology mystifies and symbolically elevates the role of computing. It serves industry by creating an aura around its products. Secondly, we interact every day with machines that pretend to be alive. Think of a computer second guessing your spelling and formatting choices, or Siri saying ‘Sorry I didn’t get that’. Culturally, this predisposes us to visions of computer personhood (see Lanier 2011: 4). Finally, mass market film and television tends to offer a limited vision of AI that, intentionally or unintentionally, resonates with the central tenets of cybernetic totalism. Essentially, human consciousness and computer technology are portrayed as being, in principle, the same thing. Rather than being a product of ideology, however, this type of representation may be due to a central limitation in film and television. Both need to attract large, diverse audiences through identification with characters using universal human traits. Thus, screen science fiction is more likely to portray AI via humanised central characters. Thus machines are predominantly portrayed as being gendered, sexualised and emotional ‘persons’ because audiences are less likely to identify with, or care about, inhuman machines.

It is ironic that productions that set out to explore AI, constrain its possibilities by only representing it in terms of its similarity to humanity. This can be understood in light of cinema and television’s need to engage audiences through psychological identification. To follow and enjoy a narrative, audiences need to see some part of themselves or other identifiable types of people in the characters. This simple constraint in making film and television may have consequences for the way that AI is represented and imagined. The idea that creating consciousness in our own image would be the crowning achievement of human science is questionable. It also suggests that there is a kind of species solipsism here. Film and television predominantly imagine machines as versions of ourselves. This may prevent us from seeing AI and robots for what they are, and from more diverse imaginings of what they could become.

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Edward BrennanProfessional Knowledge, Professional Education and Journalismhttp://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/42
http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/42Mon, 14 Nov 2016 08:34:51 PST
This paper discusses general concepts and issues underlying the education of journalists. Categorising journalism education as professional education, it seeks to explore the notion of professional education, and in particular, professional knowledge, referring to the work of Schön and Eraut to define the type of knowledge required in professional practice. The curricular models associated with professional education are discussed and compared with the forms of curriculum commonly found in journalism education.
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Nora FrenchTelevision in Ireland before Irish Television: 1950s Audiences and British Programminghttp://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/41
http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/41Fri, 19 Aug 2016 01:58:38 PDT
The first television broadcasts in Ireland were watched in the 1950s. These initial programmes were British. This history of these early viewers, however, has been ignored. A dominant narrative has addressed the history of television in Ireland as the history of the public broadcaster Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ). Thus, the history of Irish television often begins in 1961, overlooking Irish people’s experience of the medium in the preceding decade. This paper breaks with traditional historiography by employing life history interviews to explore the uses, rituals and feelings attached to television in the years before RTÉ.

Irish people who watched television in the 1950s are often passed off in literature as ’enthusiasts’. Connotations of an inconsequential private hobby are misleading. As early as 1953 there were public controversies surrounding the broadcast of the Coronation of Elizabeth II. By May 1954, the Irish Times was publishing BBC television listings. In 1955 there were an estimated 4,000 television sets in Ireland. 1958 saw an estimated 20,000 television sets in the country. Nevertheless the experience of television at this time has gone unexplored.

This limitation in historical accounts stems, in part, from sourcing. There has been a heavy reliance on sources ‘from above’, archives and official documents, and ‘from the side’, memoirs, press coverage and so. British programmes were inside many Irish homes but lay outside the game of Irish politics. As such they left few traces in Dáil debates, national archives, newspaper reports and so on. A dependence on official sources has amplified certain ideas about television in Ireland while silencing others. A focus on the institutional has also encouraged media historians to ignore audiences.

To date there has been little use of sources from ‘below’. Mindful of the limitations of memory work and oral history as a method this work triangulates with sources ‘from above’ and ‘from the side’. It will show television to have been a source of prestige, envy and aspiration. Upsetting the current orthodoxy, for many people, their earliest memories of television are attached to British rather than Irish programmes. This is to be expected since television has always been a transnational media phenomenon. Nevertheless, across the world, historians have insisted on recalling it within national boundaries.

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Edward BrennanTelevision in Ireland: A History from the Mediated Centrehttp://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/40
http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/40Tue, 19 Jul 2016 02:10:40 PDT
This paper identifies and critiques a dominant narrative in the history of Irish television, which is too often passed off for, or accepted as, the history of television in Ireland. The his- tory of television in Ireland has been written within an institutional framework and depends on the cultural binary of tradition and modernity, ‘old Ireland’ and ‘new Ireland’. This dom- inant narrative fails to interrogate television as a medium. It provides an account of the Irish broadcaster RTÉ rather than an account of the arrival of a new medium. Ironically this nar- rative which hinges on the role of television in opening up Irish society is itself quite closed in terms of the stories it tells and the questions it asks. The prevalence of this narrative can be explained by an academic dependence on institutional sources and in flawed ideas on the relationship between media and society. It will be argued that it is necessary to turn to non- institutional sources to complement and balance the factual and ideological blindspots in the dominant narrative.
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Edward BrennanProviding Objective Metrics of Team Communication Skills via Interpersonal coordination Mechanismshttp://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/39
http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/39Mon, 14 Mar 2016 07:40:44 PDT
Being able to communicate efficiently has been acknowledged as a vital skill in many different domains. In particular, team communication skills are of key importance in the operation of complex machinery such as aircrafts, maritime vessels and such other, highly-specialized, civilian or military vehicles, as well as the performance of complex tasks in the medical domain. In this paper, we propose to use prosodic accommodation and turn- taking organisation to provide objective metrics of communica- tion skills. To do this, human-factors evaluations, via a coordi- nation Demand Analysis (CDA), were used in conjunction with a dynamic model of prosodic accommodation and turn-taking organisation. Using conversational speech from airline pilots involved in a collaborative task (decision-making exercise), our study reveals that interpersonal coordination mechanisms are indicative of human evaluation of pilots’ communication skills. We discuss our results in terms of relevance for training simu- lation for personnel in safety or mission critical environments
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Celine De Looze et al.Digital Takeover of News: Journalism as a Public Service in the Social Media Agehttp://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/38
http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/38Tue, 07 Apr 2015 09:05:40 PDT
Research into the use of social media by news organisations to source information and user-generated content has shown substantial changes in the news production process. It is argued that these changes are resulting in increased access to established mainstream media for ordinary citizens, mainly through citizen-journalism.

To date, the news industry has been fixated on how free information and visual content shared on social media platforms can be sourced and verified in such a way that standards of accuracy are maintained. While news organisations focus on reaping the benefits of citizen-journalism on social networks, a growing trend of de-professionalisation in the news production process emerges. Journalists are increasingly removed from creating news content as their role shifts towards managing news. This paper examines how companies behind social networks are stepping into direct competition with traditional news media in providing news to audiences, exceeding their role as a public forum.

Current developments indicate that ownership of the news industry will in future be shared between professional news media and technology companies, with the potential implication that at least an element of news production will be entirely market driven. Journalistic standards to serve citizens in democratic societies are at risk of being seriously undermined as the emerging players are not committed to values at the heart of professional journalism. This development requires a rethinking of the responsibilities of emerging news providers in relation to their public service role to citizens.

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Jenny HauserThe Role of Semantic Processing in the Allocation of Auditory Attention in Competitive Acoustic Scenarioshttp://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/37
http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/37Tue, 09 Dec 2014 01:25:39 PSTJohn McGee et al.Speed in Context: Real-time News Reporting and Social Mediahttp://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/36
http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/36Thu, 27 Nov 2014 02:25:36 PST
Dubbed the ‘tyranny of real time’, the immense acceleration of the news cycle poses serious challenges to professional journalism. As news media struggle to keep up with the speed at which news is reported on social media while maintaining journalistic standards of accuracy, real-time coverage is blamed for de-contextualising news events. While reports may be accurate, the question asked is if they also show the truth? This paper compares the effects of the real-time news coverage of both the Ukrainian uprising and the Gaza-Israel conflict in the summer of 2014, examining how context was shaped and relayed in both instances.
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Jenny HauserChildrens' Rights or Journalists' Ethicshttp://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/35
http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/35Fri, 07 Nov 2014 01:40:35 PST
The coverage of issues concerning children and childhood has become increasingly prominent and journalists now have access to any number of sets of guidelines. Within academia there is a growing body of scholarly literature concerning journalism, the media, and coverage of children.

This activity has been mainly in the context of children’s rights. UNICEF, has been successful in highlighting the UNCRC and the role of journalists and the media in making the Convention work.

DIT, and the author, has been working with UNICEF, since 2006, in developing a syllabus for journalism schools. So far 27 universities from Turkey to Central Asia have adopted it. It is now being adapted to Africa.

The project objective was to embed the concept of children’s rights among students of journalism through using specially designed material for journalism schools. This, it was hoped, would mean a qualitative improvement in the coverage of issues surrounding childhood.

The project has raised a number of important questions relating to the role of journalists. Do such projects compromise journalists by making them, in this instance, supporters of UNICEF and the Convention on the Rights of the Child? If journalists are encouraged to question and be sceptical, are we suggesting UNICEF be exempt?

Children have a right to have their story heard, to be included in any analysis of society. The actions of governments who have signed the convention should be scrutinized and journalists should be aware of the contested nature of the concept of children’s rights.

A reliance on the contested area of rights introduces a legalistic framework, which can threaten freedom of speech and the press. If coverage of children, and ensuring they are heard, is good journalism, and if there is a need to debate children’s rights itself, what is the best way to do this? These are the questions to explored in this paper.

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Michael FoleyCathode Ray Memories: Television as Memory and Social Practicehttp://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/34
http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/34Mon, 12 May 2014 06:10:33 PDTCathode Ray Memories: Television as memory and social practice

The history of television in Ireland is, predominantly, an institutional history. Indeed, rather than studying television in Ireland most commentary addresses Irish television as embodied by Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ). There are plentiful accounts of RTÉ, its programmes, personalities and the circuits of institutional power surrounding it. This is a history populated by political and clerical elites, and written by their cultural counterparts. Institutional crises surrounding RTÉ have been used as a proxy for the experiences of Irish people. With few alternatives, this perspective has underpinned common sense understandings of how television has helped to shape Irish society.

Ironically, in attempts to explain the effect of the medium in Ireland the medium itself is overlooked. There is little comment on the changes in pace and scale that television technology has introduced. There has been no investigation of the medium’s effect on the use of time, daily habits, family routines and so on. Such ubiquitous changes, lying outside the fields of parliamentary and cultural politics, have been overlooked. They are hidden in plain sight.

To understand the effect of television in Ireland, as opposed to Irish television, this paper moves beyond the narratives that have predominated heretofore. Methodologically, it takes a necessary step beyond the limitations of a dependence on broadcast archives, newspaper records and official archives. It asks people, rather than tells them, how television has shaped their lives. Following the life story methods of Jerome Bourdon, it presents a pilot analysis of Irish memories of television. It tries to identify, and make explicit, common themes in the collective memory of television. Mindful of the medium, its affordances and the everyday rituals that are built around it, the paper traces and analyses memories of how television has re-shaped social practice.

In this presentation I critically analyse the types of narratives and formal characteristics, as well as the variety of social issues that filmmakers in the Republic of Ireland have engaged in, in creating stories about transnational migration and the immigrant subject in recent Irish documentary film. As a result of the Celtic Tiger economy from the mid-90s until 2008, Ireland has experienced a major transformation in its ethnoscape (Appadurai, 1996) by becoming a ‘country of immigrants’, with an estimated 12% of the population born outside the country. Through the analysis of such documentary titles, as Here to Stay (2006, Alan Grossman and Aine O’Brien); Saviours (2007, Liam Nolan and Ross Whitaker); and Seaview (2007, Nicky Gogan and Paul Rowley), I explore the strategies and processes of documenting the lived realities of the migrant subject, and the concomitant formations of ethnic, diasporic, and hybrid identities as experienced in Ireland. The documentary films in question, although varying in style and form, agree in striving to combine cinematic spectacle with a strong sense of social commitment. With the exception of just one, all relevant films have been produced in the context of the ‘creative documentary’ funding programme of the Irish Film Board. How did the attempts to create good cinema shape the artistic choices filmmakers have made in their work? What do these documentary films tell us about the Irish experience of immigration? Recent documentary films engaging with the theme of immigration represent Ireland from a lesser-explored perspective: it is is multiethnic, multicultural, transnational.

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Agnes KakasiChildren and The Internet in Ireland: Research and Policy Perspectiveshttp://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/32
http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/32Thu, 07 Feb 2013 01:32:30 PST
For good or ill, the internet is now very much part of children’s lifestyles today. Indeed, it is hardly possible to approach contemporary childhood – its possibilities and its risks – without understanding the degree to which information and communications technologies (ICTs) are embedded in every aspect of young people’s lives. For policy makers, the fast pace of change in the technology sector represents an additional challenge and effective interventions to protect children as well as promote positive opportunities sometimes struggle to keep up an environment that continues to evolve rapidly. There is also a tension between some of the competing responses that children’s use of the internet evokes: whether children are viewed as ‘digital natives’ or as helpless victims of online threats, there is a difficult balancing act between promoting use of the internet as something positive and beneficial for young people’s futures, whilst seeking to minimize risks they may encounter in an environment that is difficult to regulate.
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Brian O'Neill et al.Journalism Training and Media Developmenthttp://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/31
http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/31Thu, 25 Oct 2012 04:15:25 PDT
It is now 17 years since the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern and South Eastern Europe and nearly 17 years since the first initiatives were put in place to train journalists and reform the media. In that time a vast amount of money has been spent on media training and development with thousands of journalists receiving some sort of training from Western journalists, trainers and educators. Today, with some exceptions, journalism throughout the region is still characterised by a lack of professionalism, little understanding of the need for accuracy, a willingness to accept bribes and a lack of understanding of the journalist’s ethical role.
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Daire Higgins et al.Space and the Geographical Imagination on the Dublin Docklands’http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/30
http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/30Thu, 18 Oct 2012 01:55:22 PDT
In my practice–based doctoral study Dublin Dockers, Visualising a Changing Community, I am foregrounding the application of ethnographic documentary methods and investigation in examining the world of a docker and stevedore community on Dublin's docks. Through excavating and recuperating narratives which are absent from mainstream media hegemony, the study is unraveling the transformations experienced by a stevedoring constituency as a consequence of globalisation, urban regeneration and the current recession. This paper engages with arguments for the revitalisation of our imaginations on space in the context of an audio visual and textual study of the urban and maritime Dublin dockland space.
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Moira SweeneyTrust, Safety, Security: Framing EU Kids Online Policy Recommendations within the Digital Agenda for Europehttp://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/26
http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/26Mon, 19 Sep 2011 06:32:33 PDT
Since 2006, EU Kids Online – a thematic research network funded under the Safer Internet Programme - has sought to extend knowledge and inform policy regarding the opportunities that the internet affords children and young people, the risks they experience online, and the impact on children when they encounter difficulties. This paper seeks to locate EU Kids Online policy recommendations within the overarching European strategy and policy framework known as A Digital Agenda for Europe and to assess gaps in the current provision for internet safety. Originating with the Safer Internet Action Plan (1999-2004), the European Union has for over ten years promoted internet safety as a central element of Information Society policy. The underpinning objective is one of supporting an ‘Information Society for all’, fostering digital inclusion, better access and skills for all citizens, and crucially encouraging participation of young people in ICT activities. Within the terms of the Digital Agenda, it is recognized that a barrier to further e-inclusion is a lack of trust and confidence in online technologies, requiring on the part of the European Commission and member states reinforced efforts towards security, protection of privacy, and awareness of online safety. European policy in the main addresses adults’ (and parents’) concerns regarding security. Yet, as revealed in EU Kids Online research, children while mostly very confident in their approach to the online world, also have significant concerns regarding the availability of quality online content, trust, security, misuse of personal data and online support services. This paper outlines policy implications of research findings on this topic and argues for a child-centred approach towards confidence building.
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Brian O'NeillJournalism Educations and Child Rights: Exploring a New Model of Collaboration in Rights-based Journalism Educationhttp://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/25
http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/25Mon, 19 Sep 2011 03:59:04 PDT
This paper presents an overview and discussion of a unique approach to journalism education in the Central, East European and CIS region. In 2008, a group of universities initially in Turkey, and later joined by Romania, Georgia, Macedonia, Serbia, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan joined with UNICEF to introduce a new child rights syllabus into their respective journalism programmes. For years, the approach to training journalists in children’s rights in the CEE/CIS region had been quantitative – 30 journalists here, 30 there. This has produced limited results in terms of the representation of children or children’s issues in the media. From point of view of media development, integrating a rights-based approach towards journalism practice has the objective of embedding the concept of children’s rights at source with a view to enhancing overall standards in journalism. In the paper, we discuss the challenges and opportunities such an approach presents. The media in the CEE/CIS region have a very different history to other parts of the world, and very little consideration has been given to a critically-informed approach or rights-based approach to representation of children or reporting children’s issues in the media. Journalism ethics, central to the curriculum of journalism education in modern western societies, do not feature in the curriculum of most journalism schools in CEE/CIS and the tradition of an independent, responsible media as a fourth pillar of democracy is virtually non-existent. The paper examines case studies from the countries involved and evaluates how the theoretical orientation of rights-based communication has impacted on trainee journalism experience. We offer a theoretical discussion of the project’s significance, locating it within approaches to media assistance more generally as well as within broader international attempts towards fostering greater awareness of human and children’s rights among professional media workers.
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Brian O'Neill et al.Growing up Online: Some Myths and Facts About Children's Digital Lives in Ireland Todayhttp://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/24
http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/24Mon, 19 Sep 2011 03:59:03 PDT
Digital technologies and the widespread adoption of the internet have given rise to an unprecedented social transformation that is having a profound impact on childhood today. While debate continues on the precise nature of its effects and the extent to which we can refer to a distinctly different ‘digital’ generation, there is growing consensus that the centrality of new modes of sociality and new ways of communicating online in children’s lives today are shaping new contours of risk and of opportunity. This paper examines some of the myths and the facts about children's use of the internet in Ireland today as revealed in the EU Kids Online survey of children’s use of the internet across Europe. It also explores ideas of media ecology and how they may help us understand the opportunities, challenges and risks of growing up in today's digital environment. Does the concept of media education that evolved in the era of Telstar have the same relevance for the children of Facebook? What are the implications for policy makers today and how can we ensure that the information society remains an inclusive and positive phenomenon in the lives of children?
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Brian O'NeillIrish Journalist’s Attitudes Towards, and Use of, Internet Technologyhttp://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/22
http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/22Thu, 03 Feb 2011 10:56:34 PST
This paper explores the effects of Internet technology on the occupational culture and work practices of Irish journalists. There is a common view that the Internet, as an alternative source for news is challenging professional journalists. Increasingly amateurs may produce and disseminate stories to a potentially global readership. This paper presents results from a qualitative pilot study exploring Irish journalist’s reactions to this perceived threat. It reveals that the economic, social and legal features of the Irish journalistic field greatly mitigate any potential threat from the Internet. The research did reveal, however, that the Internet may have some unforeseen and unintended consequences for journalists. These will be discussed briefly in some preliminary hypotheses offered in the conclusion.
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Edward BrennanTruth and War Reporting: Journalism in Hostile Environmentshttp://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/21
http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/21Wed, 02 Feb 2011 07:45:44 PST
Many journalists, whether reporting on domestic matters internally or on assignment abroad as foreign or development correspondents, may at some point find themselves reporting on violence and hostilities in a hostile environment. This paper examines the professional and personal dilemmas that confront journalists when reporting on violence and within hostile environments both at home and abroad. The author of the paper has participated in armed conflict as a professional soldier in Ireland, Lebanon and the former Yugoslavia. He has also reported on conflict and hostilities as the Irish Times Security Analyst since October 2001. In the last two years, the author has formally interviewed dozens of Irish, British and US foreign correspondents including Martin Bell, Orla Guerin of the BBC and Nir Rosen of the New Yorker in order to fully explore the dilemmas confronted by journalists reporting in volatile and dangerous environments. The paper will draw on the author’s considerable experience as a soldier participating in violent struggle and as a journalist reporting on such events by way of the print and electronic media. The author will demonstrate the manner in which violence and hostilities are mediated by the various political, ideological and practical factors that underpin the news gathering and news making process. The author will incorporate this analysis within a theoretical frame encompassing the political economy of news production, news values and news agenda.Dr. Tom Clonan (Captain Retired)
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Tom ClonanBlowing the Whistle on Bullying in the Workplace:The Aftermath of Insider Researchhttp://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/20
http://arrow.dit.ie/aaschmedcon/20Wed, 02 Feb 2011 07:45:43 PST
From 1996 to 2000, the author of this paper – then a Captain serving in the Irish Army - conducted doctoral research into the status and roles assigned female personnel in the Irish Defence Forces – Army, Navy and Air Corps. An unanticipated outcome of this equality audit of the Irish Defence Forces was the revelation of the widespread bullying, harassment, sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape of female soldiers by male colleagues. As a result of conducting this feminist research, the author was ostracised by his military colleagues and suffered from a campaign of vilification in the private and public domain with serious personal and professional consequences. The author’s PhD thesis was lodged to the library of Dublin City University in November 2000 in accordance with academic regulations. It was later accessed by a number of journalists. By September of 2001 there was saturation coverage of the findings of the research in the Irish print and electronic media. The Irish military authorities reacted by suggesting that the research and its findings had been fabricated by the author. It was also alleged inter alia that the author had conducted the research covertly and that the author had concealed the ‘fabricated’ findings from the military authorities. In October of 2001 the Irish Minister for Defence launched an independent enquiry into the affair. The Department of Defence ‘Study Review Group’ investigated the findings of the doctoral thesis and reported in the Spring of 2003. It fully vindicated the findings of the author’s original doctoral research. In the interim, further defamatory allegations about the author – made by the military authorities – were circulated to Irish security correspondents and opinion writers. The author sought legal advice and commenced legal proceedings for libel against the Irish Minister for Defence and the Chief of Staff of the Irish Defence Forces. The case, Tom Clonan Vs The Minister for Defence, Ireland and The Attorney General was heard in court in Dublin on the 30th of May 2005. The author settled the case with his former employers and received a payment from the Irish Department of Defence. In September of 2007, Ireland’s national radio channel, RTE Radio 1 broadcast the story of the author’s research journey as part of a radio series on institutional ‘whistleblowers’. http://www.podcastdirectory.com/podshows/1905138 - http://www.rte.ie/radio1/whistleblowers/1156941.html In summary, this paper focuses on a number of key issues raised by the conduct of insider research in secretive and sensitive workplace settings – namely the potential for unanticipated negative professional and personal consequences for ‘non traditional’ workplace researchers and study participants. The author argues that these issues are not addressed sufficiently – and in most cases not described at all - in the academic literature on research methodology. The paper presents the author’s own experience as an insider researcher within the Irish military as a short case study of the ‘aftermath of insider research’ within the organisational setting of the Irish Defence Forces. The paper then summarises the main methodological challenges posed by the research and identifies areas within the literature on research methodology that might be expanded to take account of such challenges.
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Tom Clonan